Board CertifiedPlastic SurgeonSince 1989

Dr. Widder performs a Tummy tuck

Dr. Widder performs a Tummy tuck

description of tummy tuck proc

Dr. Widder: Well, the patient is a typical young lady, mother of two, and she's in with skin atrophy, muscle atrophy, and stretch marks. So the procedure we're planning for today is tummy tuck [inaudible 00:00:42]. Tummy tuck, the most common procedure, is a tightening of the skin and the muscle. It's very rare that we don't do the muscle tightening because, during the pregnancy, the muscle stretches, loosens up, and creates the bulge. Doing only the skin would not be very nice to yourself.

I separated the belly button and the umbilicus from the surrounding tissue. So the yellow ... stopping the thread and I'm raising the fat from the fascia. The white is the fascia, the thread that covers the muscle.

I'm expecting to go all the way from the pubic bone to the chest bone. And you can see how loose the muscle is from the pregnancy. You'll see it when I tighten the muscle, you'll have a big background result from the skin. But initially just going to roger in just between the other and then I'll fill the suture that will run all along the marking or dashes that will tighten the muscle all across from the chest bone to the pubic bone. You can see how much I tightened it ... space between the muscle ... that's only the beginning. We'll go even further, almost the whole thing will be gone. So there are surgeons that are the two procedures together, but my philosophy is safety comes first. And I recommend to screen the surgeons. Do the tummy tuck first, and then the breast surgery. You do the two procedures ... The pain is significant ... Patients stay in bed because they cannot move much ... It's hard to be employed because if they need to go to the bathroom, they're in too much discomfort and pain. As a result, they can develop lockjaw. So for me, the safety is number one. Obviously we're going to get a nice result. We like to avoid any bulging of the abdomen in this process. So we're going two times, two lines of the tummy procedure that for me, north to south. They are just a safety to make sure that the procedure doesn't loosen up in the recursive phase. What I'm doing now, I'm burying a knot so the patient cannot feel it through her skin. Especially if they lose weight or they do laser liposuction, because the skin is so thin, they can feel the knots, so I bury it. And doctors who do also liposuction usually come in through another group because of the risks. There was an article recently ... The data was based on an insurance company that does only cosmetic surgery, and they showed that if you combined tummy tuck and liposuction the complication rate is ten times higher than tummy tuck alone. It's not worth it. Also, most of my patients don't need liposuction after the tummy tuck because I tighten the muscle significantly and they lose weight as a result. And see, even though she is kind of sitting up, you can see that the stomach is still flat. You're usually gonna be roughly loose in the seat, but you have nothing to worry about. Now, I'm doing the quilting. So, I don't use drain on my tummy tuck, like many other surgeons. I use a different technique, which is called the quilting. I stitch the fascia of the skin to the fascia of the muscles and that prevents fluid buildup. And we're taking out almost all of the stretch marks. You're not going to have any stretch marks. It will look like you never had children.